


Settling In, Or How To Mess Up Big Time

by NyeLew



Series: Turretverse [4]
Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:54:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyeLew/pseuds/NyeLew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Expedition and the Athosians enter a new phase of their relationship, and luck finally seems to be changing for the Expedition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You know,” said Rodney idly as he played with the control crystals for one of the puddlejumpers, “it was really fucking lucky the Ancients didn’t just take all the jumpers with them when they left. A whole fucking bay of them!”

“Mm,” agreed Zelenka. “Who knows where they would have left them otherwise? Certainly not anywhere helpful, I think.”

“Right?” said Rodney, and then promptly dropped his tools because one of the crystals had sparked. “Fuck.”

“Now you’ve done it,” said Zelenka, and swore in rapid Czech. Rodney didn’t blame him, since the noise above their heads sounded unhealthy. He hoped he hadn’t brought the roof crashing down somehow because that would suck.

The first time he got, you know, actual time to work on the puddlejumpers and he crushed himself and Zelenka. Kavanaugh would practically orgasm.

He exited the ‘jumper to see that the jumper bay’s roof was slowly detaching, opening up the wide expanse of blue sky.

“Oh. Excellent, excellent – _Sheppard, you’ve got to see this. We can fly the ‘jumpers out around the planet now.”_ Rodney didn’t bother waiting for a reply; Sheppard would drop whatever it was he was doing for this.

He smirked.

“It was an accident, Rodney. Do not forget.”

Zelenka was just jealous it wasn’t _his_ accident.

*

Flying a puddlejumper was like—it was like you weren’t flying at all, sometimes. To John, it seemed like the ship knew exactly what he wanted it to do, like it was reading his mind. McKay’d said it _was_ reading his mind, that that was what ATA _did_.

Which he knew, obviously. But flying a jumper just felt _right_. It was more responsive than anything he’d ever flown, and faster than anything he’d probably fly in the future—unless they found an Ancient warship, which he was _so_ going to pilot if they did.

It seemed odd to him that it’d taken them a couple of weeks to discover the jumper bay had a retracting ceiling, but then – they’d been busy with everything else. They had to find power sources, an alpha site, fight off creepy energy beings, deal with the Wraith, exonerate Teyla—it had been a busy month. So of course when McKay opened the roof, John was the first out to explore the planet.

Flying low over the ocean, Ford eventually drew him out of his thoughts and back into the real world.

“Land ahoy, sir!” he said excitedly, pointing into the distance. John brought up a screen on the HUD.

“Huh. So there is.” He opened a channel to Atlantis. “ _Atlantis control this is Jumper One. We found some land. It’s pretty big. Over._ ”

 _“Come home for debriefing, Jumper One._ ” John rolled his eyes. He’d come back – the long way around. “You up for the scenic route, Ford?”

The young man grinned.

*

Teyla was not surprised when Halling came to her after the news broke about the mainland. Her people had been treated poorly by the Expedition after suspicions of a Wraith spy, and she did not blame them for wishing to relocate to the mainland. Some had decided to stay on Atlantis, to receive military training – lives had been lost in the month since the Expedition’s arrival, and she had encouraged some of her people to learn how to fight the Wraith.

She had not needed to. Many wished to learn from the Earthers so that if they left, Athos would have knowledge, training. She had asked Rodney for permission for some of the younger Athosians to learn from his people, the scientists, so that they could one day be of assistance.

Elizabeth had confided in her, after the revelation of her Wraith DNA, that the Expedition may never be able to return home, even if they acquired a Zero Point Module. That Pegasus may become their home—if that became true, her people would be necessary to help the Earthers survive.

So she felt that the separation of the Athosians from the Expedition was perhaps ill considered, and yet—many of her people wished it. So she took the matter to Elizabeth.

“You want to move out of Atlantis, and onto the mainland?” Elizabeth repeated.

“Not me, personally – but many among my people believe this is the best way. Those who are receiving training here, they will stay. I am committed to remaining a member of Major Sheppard’s team; I know there are several others who feel the same way. But my people believe it is best to remove themselves from Atlantis, in light of recent suspicions.”

“I am deeply, truly sorry for how you were treated, Teyla,” Elizabeth began. Teyla shook her head. She did not need apologies again, only trust for the future.

“We seek only permission to settle the mainland.”

“Of course. Actually, Teyla, you’ve saved me thinking of a solution to a problem we were having. We brought with us a … a significant capacity for growing crops and making tools; I’m sure many of our botanists would be pleased to help set up an Athosian settlement on the mainland. We can provide seeds from Earth.”

“It is done, then,” said Teyla.

She smiled. It marked a turning point in Athosian relations with the Earthers – they would each have something to provide, a role to play. The Athosians could provide food in exchange for protection and knowledge, and the Earthers would help them settle a new place. And it would give her people space to breathe, and grow again.

*

“Ever since _you_ found the mainland,” said Rodney, jabbing his fork angrily at Sheppard, “ _I’ve_ been inundated with requests from botanists and xenobiologists to go gallivanting off to the mainland. Geologists, too!”

Sheppard had the audacity to shrug and laugh.

“So what, McKay? Isn’t that what they’re here for? Besides, it gets them off your back for a couple weeks. You should be thanking me.”

Rodney frowned. He hadn’t considered that—that did make it somewhat better, he supposed. Then the _real_ scientists could get on with doing real science.

“I am sorry that my people are such a bother, Rodney,” said Teyla calmly. “I shall suggest that we do not bother you with our _coffee_ when it is grown.”

“Ooh, burn!” said Ford.

Rodney snorted. Although—wait.

“Coffee? You’re growing coffee?” He didn’t think they had it in Pegasus. They had tava beans, which he’d hoped was like coffee, but which sadly was more like sadness in a bowl.

“Elizabeth has given us seeds from your seed bank, Rodney, so that we can grow a variety of food stuffs for consumption and trade.”

That was good. He knew there was a reason he’d joined the rest of his team to _eat_ at lunch instead of making more time for mucking about with the Ancient database.

“That’s all right, then,” he offered grudgingly. They’d brought some stuff over with them in case they had to grow their own food – hydroponics equipment, seeds from a variety of crops that could grow in a whole range of places, and people with the expertise to grow them. It was nice to see that they were actually going to grow some coffee, since he’d worked out that their current supply would last them through the year—less if they had more months like the one they’d been having since they arrived. “Good.”

“Hey, Teyla – those Athosians of yours are pretty good. With some more training, they’ll be ready to join off-world teams,” said Sheppard suddenly. Rodney raised a brow. The science department had some Athosians of their own, too, and he’d taken the opportunity to work with people who hadn’t already been fed misinformation back on Earth to educate them properly.

Not personally, obviously. He had Zelenka tweak one of the Machines to be a physics and engineering teacher. But in principle he’d taken the opportunity.

“I am glad.”

“It’s nice to not have to re-educate someone supposedly intelligent,” added Rodney. “You wouldn’t believe how many of the scientists here needed a complete re-education before I could let them loose on Atlantis.”

“Oh, I think I can,” drawled Sheppard.

“What do you have Jaygo and Calan doing, Rodney?” asked Teyla. “I admit, the people of Athos are not technologically advanced, so it is difficult to see how much help they could be. We are grateful to you for allowing us to learn,” she said.

“Ah, well, not a lot, actually. Right now I’ve got them sat down in front of a laptop running Machine software trying to teach them everything they need to know to start learning how to fix things. They’re supposed be _not touching anything_ either, and so far they’re better at it than most of my own scientists.”

Kavanaugh just didn’t seem to get it, so Rodney had tasked him with setting up some sort of sewage system on the mainland. Maybe after a couple of weeks of that he’d learn to listen to his betters.

“So where’s our next mission, anyway?” asked Ford.

“M7G-677,” replied Rodney quickly. He’d memorised their missions roster so that he always knew where it was they were going and what they’d be doing; he planned his work around the missions. “Recon mission. If we’re lucky we’ll find a half-full ZPM.”

“Aim high, McKay. We’re looking for warships and ZPM factories, remember?”

“Be real, Sheppard.”


	2. Chapter 2

“So why do we need a ZPM anyway, Doc? I thought we fixed the power problems.” asked Ford, staring out the puddlejumper’s viewport.

“To power the shields in case the Wraith attack,” said McKay. _You idiot_ , finished John. McKay had been getting much better at holding his tongue. “The Mark II.5 naquadah generators are fine for day to day tasks, but I’m not sure how long they could power the shield under attack. Couple of minutes, max. _That’s_ why we need a ZPM. Even a mostly-empty ZPM could power the shield for a couple of hours, which is a damned lot better than a couple of minutes.”

“I thought we were hoping we hadn’t woken the Wraith up,” said Ford.

“We are,” said Rodney, “but if hope is your best defence against spaceships you’re up shit creek.”

John laughed.

“We’ve got nukes, too, and didn’t you say you were studying the shield technology? I have faith in your abilities, McKay, even if you don’t.”

He knew McKay’d be rolling his eyes. Obviously John knew he didn’t understand the shield tech at all yet; that was why he’d said it. But he’d be too proud to suggest otherwise, so it was perfect needling material.

“There’s a power source a few miles that way,” said Rodney, pointing. “I want to check it out, could be something big.”

“Sure thing,” said John. Maybe they were in luck, after all.

And then the ‘jumper powered down and they crashed. Guess not.

*

Rodney had located the source of the ‘electromagnetic field generator’ and they had entered ruins of a world long gone. Before they could remedy their situation, however, Teyla was astonished to find that they were surrounded by children – with weapons.

It was not uncommon for children to be left alone after a cull, but this was a world Teyla did not know of. And then they spoke of their elders – what elders would allow children, so precious, to patrol in such a way?

But then, Rodney had said that the field would disable any advanced technologies it encountered – perhaps this was a world that had not known fear of the Wraith in generations? It seemed too much to hope for, that something such as this could exist in the Pegasus galaxy – and yet Teyla was not convinced all was good.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she learned that none of the village’s inhabitants was over the age of 24; the elders the children had spoken of were _children_ , of an age with perhaps Aiden. When their elders explained their ritual sacrifice, she almost felt like she would cry.

When Rodney and Aiden returned to the ruins to investigate the source of the field’s power, Teyla stayed in the village to learn from the children. She learnt of their past and the stories, and what they believed protected them; there were twelve tribes, all of them practising the same ritual sacrifice. They believed that it made them safe from the Wraith, as the Wraith preferred to cull the old and leave the young behind to survive.

Teyla could not say whether that had truly protected them for so long. There were other, richer worlds to cull – what Wraith would waste time with this?

*

“I cannot _believe_ you would bring this here, Rodney!” said Elizabeth. He’d given her a headache and he’d been back all of five minutes. “What were you _thinking?_ This is the only thing protecting those children from the Wraith!”

“Please, Elizabeth. We need this. We can offer to rehome them on the mainland – we’re going to need a lot of food. We’ve got 500 people to feed, if you don’t remember!” That wasn’t including the Athosians, Elizabeth knew. Their food stores from Earth were substantial, but wouldn’t last forever. Could they afford to rehome that many people?

“I remember, Rodney. I am just as cognisant of our situation as you are! I _was at the meetings_ , if _you_ remember.”

“Just let me analyse it. If ours has less power we can swap them; it’d last decades on that planet.”

Elizabeth considered it. If it weren’t as depleted as their own ZPM that would be a stroke of luck – and if it was, they could just give it back. Sergeant Bates would have enough to say if they attempted to rehome an entire civilisation on the mainland – he was already kicking up a fuss about the Athosians being there, even if he preferred that to them living in the city.

They had the resources to help build a thriving community both here on Atlantis and on the mainland; it was at least something to consider, especially as they had brought with them the supplies for such a thing. They had suffered losses in the previous month that would be necessary to replace—with training, they could become an asset to the Atlantis community. And it would allow the Atlantis personnel to continue with their own research and projects.

“Rodney – we’ll consider rehoming, if their elders agree to it.”

The look of glee on his face was no doubt more related to the possibility of retaining the ZPM, but Elizabeth gave him the benefit of doubt in this instance.

*

Back at the village, John had been pressured into standing in Keras’s ‘cleansing ceremony’. Which was no way to be spending a 25th birthday, in his opinion. He’d tried to impress upon the kids that they didn’t need to kill themselves – but none of them other than Keras had been in any way receptive.

Even he’d only been interested for a bit.

He frowned. The Wraith bracelet on the dead Wraith’s arm (Pegasus décor 101: dead Wraith are great additions to the home) was glowing.

 _Shit._ It was a fucking transmitter, and since _McKay_ had disabled the EM field it was transmitting again. He bolted over to it, ripped it from the Wraith’s arm and shot it to fucking pieces. _Transmit that, you bastard._

“It’s a Wraith transmitter,” he said helpfully, to a sea of either blank or downright angry faces. Right, he was interrupting a religious suicide ceremony. He’d tried to forget. “It’s sending a message to the Wraith; if you let me bring my team back we can make it so they go away.”

Keras seemed about to agree, but that little fucker Ares got there first.

“No. Get out – it’s you full-growns who are bringing the Wraith. _Leave._ ”

“We have to fix our ship,” lied John. “It broke when we got here, remember?” McKay had already flown it back to Atlantis – John had given him flying lessons, which hadn’t gone that badly (they were still alive). He needed to radio Atlantis ASAP.

“Just give me a little more time, that’s all.”

He won that much, at least. Through Keras more than anything, he supposed. He had Ford dial the gate to Atlantis.

_“Atlantis, this is Major Sheppard. We’re going to need that ZPM back. We have a situation.”_

*

“Elizabeth, we can’t give them the ZPM back. Yes, it’s nearly depleted and yes, it only gives us a few more hours if the Wraith attack – but Machine analysis shows that with four of our Mark II.5s and our existing ZPM it could give us an extra nineteen hours.”

Elizabeth knew he would have readouts and scenarios for what exactly they could do with those hours as well. She knew how Machine analysis worked – they weren’t true AIs in the sci-fi sense, but they were excellent problem solvers and could see solutions where humans couldn’t even see problems.

But denying these children protection from the Wraith, the Wraith they had woken up and the Wraith they had called to their planet by unwittingly removing their only protection? That was cold. It was Machine through and through.

_“Major Sheppard, this is Dr Weir. Offer them evacuation to Atlantis. Anyone who’s willing to come.”_

“ _Elizabeth?_ ” was his only response. They lacked true manpower – they had 500 people, but most of them were scientists. They had 150 military personnel with them, which was a large number but that had dwindled somewhat. No. They needed manpower, and if trained, Pegasus natives could provide that.

_“Do it. Machine analysis shows we could obtain significant advantages with this extra ZPM; we need to do everything we can to keep it.”_

ZPMs were so rare it might be months, years before they found another. In a galaxy like Pegasus, that could mean tens of deaths.

_“All right.”_

*

This was all McKay’s fault. How was he supposed to convince a group of kids their way of life was wrong, and that Atlantis offered something better? One of them was already preparing for ritual suicide; nothing he’d tried already had helped.

“So, uh, any of you guys like Ferris wheels?” Nothing. “Look, I have an offer to make. My leader, Dr Weir, wants me to make you guys an offer.”

“What kind of offer?” asked Keras quickly.

“We want to offer all of you – all the villages – somewhere to live. With us, back on our world.”

“Does it have chocolate?” asked one of the younger children – Nerus, or Neleus, something weird John couldn’t remember.

“It has chocolate,” said John too quickly for anyone to stop him. “We can fight the Wraith – we destroyed a Hive already.”

“Why should we go with you?” asked Ares. “We’re safe here. No one has come through the ring in generations.”

You’re not safe here, John wanted to say. And that’s our fault. Instead, he went with something else.

“The Wraith are coming and you won’t be safe unless you come with me.”

“Let him speak,” said Keras. “Until the cleansing ceremony is complete, and until I am dead, I am the oldest here, Ares.”

“I think this should be an elders only kinda thing,” suggested John, shuffling away slightly. The kids agreed, and so John and the ‘elders’ moved away to speak privately.

“Look, when we got here, we kind of messed up. Your sacrifices don’t protect you; there’s an electromagnetic field surrounding a certain area that stops all technology working. _That’s_ what protects you from the Wraith, not sacrifice. And we sort of broke it by taking away the power source. But we can put it back.”

“I don’t believe you.” It was Keras, not Ares, which surprised John.

“You’d better believe me. The Wraith are probably _en route_ right now; either we get the EM field working or you come with me – otherwise you’re all going to die.”

He was getting a little angry. He didn’t know how he’d cope with raising a kid, if he would. They didn’t even know what he was talking about – he’d heard one of the younger kids refer to darts as ‘Wraith birds’. He shouldn’t even be that angry because it was their fault – not just McKay’s; John had agreed that they needed to at least analyse the ZPM.

“We should assemble the tribal elders,” said Keras. Ares agreed, and so did the others.

_Good. Progress._

He radioed Teyla to tell her to update Atlantis. They’d need to send a couple of ‘jumpers through for the relocation, if everything went smoothly. If not, they needed to be able to fight the Wraith if they came.

*

“What’s all this about having to get ready for a few hundred children in the city, Rodney?” asked Beckett, appearing in a rare moment outside of the medical bay and inside his lab. Where he was working.

“Oh, that. We found a ZPM. It belonged to some kids. Now they’re going to have to live here, maybe. Or we have to give it back, because it’s protecting them from the Wraith.”

“That sounds like an awful lot of people… is the ZPM full, then?”

Rodney felt his face go red.

“Ah, not exactly. But we can squeeze an extra 19 hours out of the shield if we use this, our ZPM and four Mark II.5s in parallel.” And that was a start, no matter how many people might disagree. He had the simulations to prove it.

“It’s still an awful lot of people, Rodney. And who says they’ll be safe here with us? God knows _I_ don’t feel safe and they’re paying me to be here.”

Rodney sighed and turned away from his work. ZPM study would have to wait.

“Look at it this way. We were sent off from Earth with two explicit missions: Don’t get killed, and Come back with weapons if you can. _There are no reinforcements._ There will be no resupply. There isn’t going to be anyone coming after us, at least not until after the Goa’uld are dealt with – and then there’s the threat of the Asgard’s mysterious enemy that prevents them from enforcing the fucking Protected Planets Treaty. We don’t even have intergalactic hyperdrives.” He paused. “You can train some of the older ones as doctors, field medics. We need all the expertise we can get.”

“I suppose.”

_“Dr McKay your presence is requested in the command room. Chuck out.”_

Rodney sighed again. This was probably Weir wanting him to give the ZPM back. They could do without it, but he’d fight to keep it. And the kids. They could use a few malleable minds.

*

The kids had convened an emergency meeting of the tribal elders. John had sped up the situation by flying Jumper One around to collect them all. They’d still been at it for the best part of an hour. They didn’t understand that time was important, that the Wraith would probably arrive at any minute. It took a few more hours for them to agree on relocation; he radioed Atlantis immediately to start the evacuations.

Eventually they managed to get a stream of children moving through the Stargate. It took a while, but John managed to convince them they could come back for their stuff later, but that it was important to move _now_. In case the Wraith came.

And they did come. It took them about seven hours by John’s count, but they came and they’d only managed to evacuate four out of twelve villages before the culling started. From where he was stuck was Ares and Keras, John spotted maybe three darts. No doubt there’d be a Hive on the way soon.

“This is your fault,” said Ares angrily. “If you had never come we would have been safe!”

What could he say? It was true. It was all their fault –if they hadn’t removed the ZPM, if they hadn’t woken the Wraith – everything was their fault.

“I know. Let us fix it. We can get you to the Starate, get you off-world.”

They were already managing it, he knew from the radio chatter. Jumpers Two and Three were off-world as well, shuttling the villagers from their villages and to the Stargate. Three villages were culled already, and two more were _en route_ to the Stargate.

If they were lucky, the rest would make it through. This was the Expedition’s fault; he didn’t doubt this one decision would weigh on Elizabeth’s mind forever after today. He knew it’d stick with him. McKay, too. Their first big fuck up. Second, counting the Wraith.

They had a lot to answer for.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who's been reading this and leaving kudos - it's really appreciated. I didn't think anyone would still be around to read it, so it's been great to see. I have at least another six story arcs to write, and I'm not sure it'll be finished after that either. So I hope you all stick around!

“Damn it, Rodney,” said Elizabeth. Rodney flinched. The whole thing was his fault for taking the ZPM – a Wraith transmitter had activated and within hours a Hive appeared over the planet. Stranding their people – and the children they hadn’t managed to evacuate, which was a lot – on the planet with the Wraith overhead.

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth! How was I supposed to realise there was a Wraith transmitter right fucking next to Sheppard?”

Elizabeth sighed.

“You weren’t. It’s as much my fault as it is yours, Rodney, for not sending you back with the ZPM straight away. This is all of our mess. Now how do we fix it? We’ve got a Wraith Hive in orbit and our people on the ground.”

He stopped himself from shrugging. It was inappropriate, and unhelpful.

“We’ve got nothing that can attack a Hive in orbit,” he said. “Unless you’re counting the puddlejumpers, but they wouldn’t stand a chance up against a Hive. So that’s out.” He paused. “Zelenka’s been running Machine analysis on a number of scenarios—we think our best option is to send three ground extraction teams with the Mega Turret to secure the Stargate and bring our people home.”

“Sergeant?” she said to Bates. “What do you think?”

“I would agree, ma’am. I have three teams ready to extract our people and provide protective fire to our jumpers stuck on the ground. McKay, how long will it take to set up the Mega Turret?”

He frowned. He wasn’t sure, exactly – the Mega Turret was untested prototype technology based on the smaller, infinitely more annoying automated defence turrets. It was a blend of Goa’uld weaponry and good old Earth-based AI, but he suspected the crystal/electronics interface would be screwy. He made a note to ask Zelenka about the feasibility of storing Machine software on crystal.

“Could be anywhere up to thirty minutes. I don’t know, we’ve never field tested the technology before.”

“Get it done, Rodney.” Elizabeth’s face was hard; he didn’t blame her. This was a big cock up, and if they couldn’t minimise their losses they’d be well and truly fucked. If they lost Teyla they lost the Athosians, and losing Sheppard would deal a major blow to their military contingent and morale as a whole.

He didn’t argue.

*

The Wraith had come. Not in numbers as she had assumed – for a Hive in orbit, Teyla could feel few Wraith presences on the ground. That was a small mercy. Their activities on the planet had been folly from the start; how could Rodney have taken the children’s only defence away? Even if the Earthers had persuaded them later to evacuate the planet, their ZPM should have been brought back to ensure safety until the time arrived to leave.

And now they were all stuck, hiding from the cull. The Wraith were awake, it seemed, in numbers enough to send a whole Hive to investigate the transmitter. She had with her three children – refugees from a culled village.

They would not die today.

“Hush,” she said. “You cannot fight them. We must wait for word from Major Sheppard’s people.” She didn’t blame the children for wanting to fight. She wanted to, as well – but without word of reinforcements, they would be culled and no help would come.

The Earthers’ ships were a galaxy away, and engaged with enemies of their own.

“ _Teyla. Where are you?”_ It was John.

“ _We were headed for Jumper Two. We are … quite far from the Stargate.”_

_“Fuck.”_

_“Indeed.”_

The Wraith had more than likely stayed because they were met with resistance; Teyla saw Jumper Three unleash several of its ‘Drone weapons’ in the distance, destroying the Wraith Darts it had targeted. She had killed three Wraith herself, with the Earthers’ weapons. And now the Wraith were hunting them.

_“All right. Try and make it to the gate. I’ll try to meet up with you on the way. Sheppard out.”_

_“Be careful, John.”_

*

Rodney swore. Fucking piece of shit Mega Turret had a fucked up targeting system and seemed unable to tell friend from foe; it wanted to attack the jumpers and the darts indiscriminately.

“Bates! Order the jumpers to power down; they’re drawing turret fire!”

The Mega Turret used modified ha’tak weaponry to act as an automated anti-air defence system. In theory, it was to become standard equipment for defence of exposed areas such as the Stargate. In practise its software was alpha at best and couldn’t tell friend from foe.

He didn’t wait for Bates to relay the order before he interfaced his laptop with the turret’s systems.

 _“Zelenka. I’m going to need a little help here.”_ Rodney was no AI engineer; he knew enough of the code to get by, but this what was Zelenka was _for_. He’d written the Machine code they used for analysis, even if he hadn’t worked on the turret systems. _“I need to make the Mega Turret understand the jumpers are friendlies.”_

Zelenka swore in Czech.

“ _That is big problem, Rodney. AI must learn to—no, no.”_

Eventually Zelenka worked through the problem, and Rodney altered the Machine code as quickly as he could – he finished just in time to see it shoot a Dart out of the air.

 _“It worked?_ ” asked Zelenka. Rodney would have been more worried about how shocked he sounded, but he had bigger problems.

Like not dying.

*

John knew he was being reckless. It’s not like he didn’t get how dangerous his actions were—he just didn’t care. He figured the nanites would soak up most of the stunner blasts, or whatever it was they did. The kids didn’t have that option, so in the face of three Wraith warriors, John led the charge.

He knew he was bleeding, too, from somewhere that should have hurt. It didn’t; the nanites probably flooded him with painkillers.

Keras and Ares were brave, but only one of them had a gun – bows and arrows didn’t do much against Wraith regeneration. Captain Thomas was dead, his head split open by a Wraith warrior who got too close.

Another one for the List.

He’d given Keras his P90 which took off some of the pressure, but John had to get them out alive. Didn’t help that Ares was still blaming the Wraith coming on them – which was true, but the kid had totally the wrong reasons.

As if that made it better.

The Wraith were dead, at least.

_“McKay. What’s the turret status?”_

_“Online and functioning correctly. We’ve got the jumpers back in the air; radio your location and we can pick you up.”_

_“Gotcha. Oh, McKay? I’ve got presents.”_

*

Elizabeth oversaw the relocation of the children from M7G-677 to the mainland personally. She felt a personal responsibility for the destruction of their home, their way of life, at the hands of the Wraith. She couldn’t blame either Rodney or Major Sheppard, who she knew would blame themselves.

Rodney had done his job by finding and acquiring an extra ZPM; Major Sheppard had done his by allowing Rodney to investigate the area. No. The responsibility was solely hers: it was her decision not to order Rodney to take the ZPM back, to offer an evacuation to Atlantis, to send out teams to scout Pegasus in the first place.

The children didn’t know how many of them had lived before the cull, but preliminary counts estimated at least two hundred dead. The Expedition had lost several good men and the Mega Turret had suffered damage. Jumper Two needed maintenance, and Elizabeth couldn’t say whether they’d gained anything in real terms.

Losses, certainly. The Athosians offered to take in many of the children, but Elizabeth could tell relations had been strained by the recent affair. Many of the children still believed it was their sacrifices which kept the Wraith away; she knew that was a belief that would be hard to shake.

And still, some of the older children wished to fight. To learn. There was a fierce drive to survive in the Pegasus cultures they’d met, a need that surmounted all others. The lengths they were willing to go to avoid the Wraith—Elizabeth didn’t want to think about it.

Already she had requests from some of the civilian staff to set up a school for the younger children. The older children could take on the job training, and many had done so  - but these children, they argued, were the future of Pegasus.

The combined population of Lantea now numbered around 950 – a staggering amount of people, when Elizabeth considered it.

How was she going to support that, and continue with their mission?


End file.
